A Cottage by the Sea - On My Mind

Simplicity: living simply, simply means being.

12/9/2024

This blog is for those who are looking for silence, solitude and simplicity, and who sometimes like to be along. For all of the fifteen years of its existence, I haven't written much about simplicity--I haven't even thought much about it. Silence and solitude always seemed to be center front for me, trusting that simplicity would follow. And besides, simplicity was a given. Of course, we all want simplicity!
As I grow older (on December 30th I turn 85), I find that simplicity is offering me new understandings and desires. I'm getting rid of stuff in the house; I've stepped away from commitments at church; I run the household as simply as I can; I'm not traveling alone any more. These all feel like natural evolutions.
What feels dramatically different, however, is my personal understanding of leisure. What used to be a break from my busy, productive life, I now consider as part of my life. Leisure is what I do, along with cooking, exercising, brushing my teeth… I simply figure out what I want to eat; I simple walk; I simply brush my teeth; I simply take leisurely moments. Less thought, less planning, less thinking. Hmm, maybe living simply, simply means being.

Everyday gratitudes

11/27/2024

Most mornings in my journal I write 7 things for which I'm grateful. Today I wrote numbers 1978 through 1984. Oh, I've missed a few days, such as when traveling or when I get up late. There are many repeats, a current one being "No news," which means I didn't listen or read any. Since the election, every morning I've been grateful for that.! Other repeats have to do with a friend I'm seeing, or if there is a day of solitude on the calendar. And then there is my all time favorite, my mom's '4 gratitudes,' which she acknowledged each day: (in no particular order)--"my friends and family, my faith, my health, and my life." Missing you mom at Thanksgiving time.

Silence Thoughts: Day 3

11/13/2024

                       Day 3

Silence is the state in which all the powers of the soul and all the faculties of the body are completely at peace, quiet and recollected, perfectly alert yet free from any turmoil or agitation.
Anthony Bloom

Good as is discourse, silence is better and shames it.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

One can never be alone enough…there can never be enough silence around one…even night is not night enough.
Franz Kafka

Speak only if it improves upon the silence.
Mahatma Gandhi

Keep in mind that God’s first language is silence.
Fr. Thomas Keating

…and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire, and after the fire a sound of sheer silence.
1 Kings 19:1

The Brownie Fairy is alive and well

11/10/2024

I've returned to silence, solitude, and simplicity. Maybe you didn't know that I had left it. Well, I did, kind of. I compartmentalized myself, keeping to silence, solitude and simplicity during most of my awake time, except when listening to the news. And, I must admit that I became rather addicted to it, listening for two to three hours. I did this until ten days before the election, when didn't turn on the TV. When my candidate lost, it became easy to keep the TV off. Why would I want to listen?
As I look back on this past year, I realize that I was becoming cynical and judgment, reaping what I was sowing. I didn't like that in myself, but what to do? The elections results became the catalyst. On Thursday morning I made the commitment to focus my life I what I could do to help people in my orbit, people I know who need visits, contacts, and perhaps a gift from the Brownie Fairy, who is alive and well.

Peace Prayer, attributed to St. Francis

11/6/2024

Peace Prayer
Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace;
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
And where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,
Grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console;
To be understood, as to understand;
To be loved, as to love;
For it is in giving that we receive,
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
And it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life. Amen.

Silence Thoughts: Day 2

11/4/2024

Day 2

To listen to the silence, wherever you are, is an easy and direct way of becoming present.
Eckhart Tolle

Be angry, and do not sin; ponder in your own hearts on your beds, and be silent. Psalm 4:4

The best cure for anger is silence.
Marcus Aurelius

Silence was imposed on me from the very beginning, and I lived with it until it became my own.
Linda Olsson

May you grow still enough to hear the stir of a single snowflake in the air, so that your inner silence may turn into hushed expectation.
Br. David Steindl-Rast

There is a silence which can be only met by silence.
Amy Carmichael

Silence Thoughts: Day 1

10/25/2024

I believe that God is in me as the sun is in the color and fragrance of a flower—the Light in my darkness, the Voice in my silence.
Helen Keller

Do not speak unless you can improve upon the silence.
Quaker saying

The English word “silence” comes from the Latin, dēsinere, which means to stop.
Br. Curtis Almquist

A critical step in the embrace of silence and solitude is setting aside the notion that we have to be “doing something” throughout our waking days.
Richard Mahler

The first requirements of silence are to have faith and patience, and, with one’s whole heart, strength and power—to love and to hope.
St. Gregory of Sinai

The quieter you become, the more you can hear.
Ram Dass

Silence Thoughts: Introduction

10/19/2024

I just realized that it has been almost a month since I last posted. Always a reason, of course! Mine, which makes sense as far as this blog is concerned, is that I've been working on my latest booklet *, this one entitled "Silence Thoughts." It's a compilation of quotes about silence, many of them I posted here throughout the years.
Until I figure out how to put the link on this blog so you can access it,
and print it out if you so choose, I'll post a page right here every day or so. You can always email me if you want me to email you the file of the complete booklet.

* Other booklets: "Prayer Thoughts" and "Hope Thoughts."

“Silence is golden.”My mother’s words as I was growing up, and her silent message until she passed away at age 101. She never needed to elaborate. She lived Ecclesiastes 3:7, ‘…a time to keep silent and a time to speak.’
   After I retired from teaching kindergarten (not a silent profession), I began to embrace some of the silence that had been my mother’s natural way of being. I found I loved traveling alone. For five winters I spent the week days in silence at the cottage by the sea that I rented in Maine. My husband and I have always appreciated silence.
   At this moment I am finding that the world is not silent; it is hard for me to embrace the silence I love. Perhaps it is the same for you. And so, I offer “Silence Thoughts” as a gift to help you embrace ‘a time to keep silent and a time to speak’ in your life.
                           Bobbi Fisher
                           October 2024
  [email protected]

Helping someone, an antidote to guilt!

9/23/2024

The other day a friend sent me a text lamenting that she just doesn't feel that she is doing enough, the implication being that she doesn't help people as much as she "should". Safe to say this isn't an unknown feeling to any of us. It's part of the human guilt condition that most of us feel! And, if we aren't concerned about helping others, then maybe we should feel a little guilty about that.
But this doing for others isn't just something we "should" do. It is also something we "want" to do, something we "need" to do to help us feel whole and human. It a soul call, a call to be our best human self. When we feel guilty maybe we "should" pay attention to the guilt for a short time, and do what we know we need to do so that it doesn't linger. Helping someone is a great antidote to guilt.

A cottage by the sea that works for you

9/9/2024

The other day at a neighborhood party an acquaintance surprised me by saying, "I read your book."
      I responded with "Which one?" thinking that she was probably a teacher and was acquainted with one of the books I wrote years ago for teachers.
      "No, the one about your mother, the one about the time you spent alone at the cottage by the sea." She went on to tell me about the weeks vacation she, her husband and college age daughter had just spent in Maine.
      "It was kind of like your time; we didn't make any plans; we all just did as we wanted; we walked; we read all day. I'd like to do something like that again, something like you did."
       We went on to talk about possibilities, what that might look like for her, how that would fit in to her life now.
      "You'll figure out a way, a cottage by the sea time that will work for you."
     "I know I will. Thank you for writing the book; thank you for sharing
your journal entries, what you were thinking at the time. They resonates with me now."